Science Will Not Be Silent

It’s the episode you’ve been waiting for! It’s time to talk about it. The 2024 elections will be pivotal for our ability to get good science done in this country, and the implications of Trump’s proposed cabinet nominees are already drawing criticism from many in the scientific community. As a reminder, the Union of Concerned Scientists isn’t partisan, but we are and always will be standing on the side of good science and evidence-based policy-making.

UCS is home to the Center for Science and Democracy, which is something that really drew me towards working here. Science cannot exist in a vacuum. As scientists, we are impartial observers and interpreters of the data we collect, but the data themselves often point us in the direction of policy that will help protect and even save lives. For decades, many scientists have been afraid of speaking out to advocate for the use of science in public policy and decision-making. Many of those fears originated because of what happened to Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project, after he spoke out about the dangers of nuclear weapons. His security clearance was revoked and his long-term formal association with the United States government ended.

The chilling effect this had on scientists in the public arena cannot be overstated, and fortunately for us today, scientists are much more willing and able to add our voices to the public policy conversation. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: science saves lives, and it demands a seat at the table.

I’m your host Jess Phoenix, and this is science.

Jess: For this very important conversation, I'm joined by Dr. Christopher Williams, research director here at the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Christopher has conducted research on electoral systems, campaigns, political parties, and elections themselves. In addition, he's performed quantitative evaluations of federal government programs under the Department of Defense and Health and Human Services. So, thanks for being here, Christopher, and let's not sugarcoat it. Our country is heading for some pretty rough seas when it comes to evidence-based policymaking. How do you see the first 100 days of the second Trump presidency comparing to the first 100 days of his first time in office when it comes to decisions that affect science and scientists?

Dr. Christopher: Thanks for having me. Again, you're right. Let's not sugarcoat this. So, the first 100 days, it's really hard to tell right now what it's going to look like. A lot of that is going to be determined by who the appointments are, right? If we end up with, say, Robert Kennedy as Health and Human Services Secretary, it's going to look far worse than Trump 1.0. I do think an important thing here, though, is that in 2017 when Trump took office for the first time, there were a lot of people within his own party and within government in general who didn't fully buy into the idea of Trumpism, right? They didn't buy into these policies. And so his cabinet and his White House was actually stocked with a lot of people who maybe didn't necessarily agree with what he wanted to do. So, if you remember this, like, Rince Priebus, who is his initial chief of staff, I think lasted less than a year. Rex Tillerson as the Secretary of State… So, those people kind of pushed back against a lot of Trump's policy impulses. The first 100 days this time, he's probably not going to make that same mistake of putting these people who aren't fully on board into these positions of power. He's going to choose people who are going to buy wholly into what he wants. And so that is probably going to mean we're going to see more extreme policy coming out of this administration early on. And keeping in mind also that Republicans now have control of the Senate and it looks like they're going to control the House as well, right? It's not just what is coming out of the administration, but there are going to be allies for Trump in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. So, I think there could be substantially more extreme policy being made, both through the legislative process and within the executive branch.

Jess: Are you able to lay out for us some of the real-world consequences on government science during the first Trump administration for people listening, who they may not be aware or they may not remember? So, who or what was hurt, and in what ways?

Dr. Christopher: We keep an attack on science database. We go all the way back to the George W. Bush administration, and we can see how many attacks there have been on science within these administrations. And there have been attacks in all administrations, W, Obama, Trump and Biden. However, they grew exponentially under Trump…hundreds upon hundreds of these. And what this does, obviously, is it creates misinformation and disinformation. One of the prime examples that seems almost quaint at this point was Donald Trump taking a sharpie to the hurricane map, saying, "No, it's going to turn." And he drew drew that plot himself. At first, that almost seems laughable, right? But if we stop and think about what that actually does, that is telling people, many of whom believe what Donald Trump says, that the storm is coming in one direction. So maybe the people who evacuate because they think it's coming to them lose their jobs. They lose money, right? And then the people who don't evacuate because they think it's not coming towards them actually get hit by the hurricane, right? So, these factors matter, right? People get hurt when we have that science affected in this political way.

We also see a lot of pressure on federal scientists who have their research curtailed and have political pressure put on them, right? So, what do they do? They say, "I don't need to stay in this government job. Either I'm close to retirement, I can get out or I can go find a job in the private sector." And we end up seeing at that point is a whole lot of federal scientists kind of backing out of the federal workforce. Which is difficult because we need that science to make policy. So, in that case, who fills that void? And one of the big concerns is that it's moneyed interests, who very often aren't necessarily doing the best science because it's a conflict of interest. But they're the ones who fill that void. And that leads to bad science, which leads to bad policy and people get hurt.

Jess: And what kinds of people seem to be impacted the most by these oversights in policy or these blatant miss or disinformation?

Dr. Christopher: It's almost always these kind of marginalized communities, black and brown communities, low-income communities. They always bear the brunt of bad science first. So, if we do think about, say, NOAA and hurricanes or the National Hurricane Center, people who are middle class, upper middle class wealthy, regardless of whether or not a hurricane is actually coming right at you, somebody who is in a middle-class job or an upper middle class or wealthy position can easily evacuate. You don't lose your job. Maybe you waste some time and some money on gas, but it's not the end of the world. For people who work, say, hourly jobs, which largely fall on low-income people, obviously. But black and brown communities have lower-paying jobs and they have more hourly-paying jobs, right? So, okay, say a hurricane is coming, but we don't have Noah giving us clear information as to where it is coming. These low-income black and brown communities who work hourly, they can't leave for fear of losing their job. So, not knowing if it's coming or not, leaves them with a whole lot of uncertainty. And when there's uncertainty, wealthier people can more easily make the safer decision. But those who are in low-income communities sometimes have to try and ride it out. And so that uncertainty could actually lead to these marginalized communities getting hit harder.

Jess: Early in my career as a scientist, I got the messaging a lot that scientists don't engage in political discourse. And now, fortunately, we've learned that that's not true. And it's not best practice when it comes to operating an effective government. So, how have you seen the conversation change around science and politics since 2016? And where do you see that heading?

Dr. Christopher: So, I think it actually goes back to before 2016. When I was in graduate school, a senator from Oklahoma, I remember it was Tom Coburn, actually took to the floor in the Senate and they decided to cut funding to social sciences through the NSF. So, these attacks on science have been going back a long time. And you're right, my training was also, science is completely non-normative. It doesn't take positions. It's just truth. And I still believe that that's the way we should be operating to do our science. Obviously, we don't want politics coming into the decisions we make when we produce science. But what we have seen is more scientists willing to take those positions publicly. Like, my research or our research or just the research in general shows X, Y, or Z., all right? Okay, so that has implications.

And we're starting to see scientists being more willing to say out loud, "The implications of this are these bad things." So, I do think there has been over the last 15 years a movement of scientists away from saying, "My work is done in a vacuum. I do my work. I put it out there and let everybody else deal with it." I think more and more scientists are frustrated that their work doesn't necessarily get out into those communities. So, they're taking it there themselves.

Jess: I think we need more of that going forward. And I know that you're familiar with a lot of non-governmental organizations, so nonprofits, NGOs in the international parlance. But they operate in both the political and scientific realms. For folks who may be new to UCS, how is UCS unique? And what does this mean for our ability here at UCS to affect positive change, to keep people and the planet safe after Trump assumes the presidency?

Dr. Christopher: Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing with UCS is we go back to the 1960s. We've been around a long time advocating for science and policymaking. We are like the originals here, right? We're the original Coke, not the new Coke. So, I think what that does is it lends us credibility to begin with. But on top of that, we are not a think tank. But in some ways, we kind of are a hybrid between an advocacy organization and a think tank. We do new groundbreaking research that is in line with what they're doing in academia. And we're using that research to adjust the policy recommendations we're making. We're not relying on other people to do this research and then taking it. We are actually asking the questions and answering the questions ourselves. So, I think this is what kind of differentiates us from a lot of these organizations.

And a number of the organizations out there that are doing work, doing research, they oftentimes fall short on doing like these causal inferential studies, right? There's a lot of descriptive data, which is really useful and helpful for understanding a problem. But isolating solutions becomes more difficult. And so we're undertaking some pretty sophisticated inferential research to get at what the causes and effects are of certain policies. And I think that really differentiates us from a lot of other organizations.

Jess: Just go with me for a minute down this horrible path, of let's say there's an all-out assault on using evidence and data to make federal policy going forward. Worst case scenario, who and what gets hurt and how?

Dr. Christopher: So, you've asked me this question without knowing that I am a bit of a catastrophizer.

Jess: Joined the club. I'm a disaster scientist, so...

Dr. Christopher: I have a tendency to look at what's happening and say, "Okay, what is the worst possible outcome? If everything falls into place, what happens?" And just today I was talking to one of my good friends who is an attorney and he was asking about tariffs. Science does inform trade policy. Economic science really does. And political science does as well.

So, Donald Trump has said very clearly he wants to put tariffs in place to protect American workers. Well, the problem with this is, tariffs create greater inflation, right? So, that Chinese television that costs $300 has a 200% tariff put on it and now it's over $500 and U.S.-made televisions are cheaper. Okay, but they're not cheaper, they're cheaper than the Chinese ones, but the price never comes down. So, all we're doing is increasing prices there. Obviously, this inflation hurts lower-income communities, right? Now, they can't afford things because of these tariffs. But then it gets even worse. Because the benefits of this make things even worse. So, great. American companies start making more money because consumers are buying American goods. And what this leads to is greater hiring. Sounds great, right? Except for the fact that the labor pool is now getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Which drives wages up, which drives prices up, and then those prices going up, drives wages up more. It's called a price wage spiral, right?

And what this eventually does is it leads to increasing poverty, right? Because it gets to the point where that kind of lower third of people, not only can they not afford things, people above that middle class now have to start cutting back on things and they can't afford to actually do things, all right? You know, food becomes an issue. And when you start to buy cheaper food, it affects your health, right? On top of this, you know, okay, prices have gone up. I need to find ways to spend less money. Okay, I need a new car. Well, a new electric car is super expensive because of these tariffs. Okay, so what I can do is I can go out and buy a used internal combustion engine car, which we know produces more carbon. So, having to cut back and spend less there produces worse effects on climate change.

So, all these prices are going up and up and up. But there is another problem of China's economy gets hit hard because now they can't sell products. Okay, well, their economy is already teetering to some degree. Let's say we push it into full-blown recession. What effect does that have? Now, China needs to find a way to make ends meet in their budget, right? How are they going to spend money? Well, what do they hold a lot of? Foreign debt, including U.S. debt. So, how can they fill that budget hole? They can call in U.S. debt, which we would then have to either default on or pay back. How do you pay back all of this money? You start printing more money. It leads to even greater inflation. And it puts the world economy into another great recession, if not worse. So, not following science in this, could have pretty monumental effects if all things fall into place right. But if you follow the science, from the very beginning, things aren't falling into place right. So, what I'm saying is, if this does start happening, buy gold. I'm just joking.

Jess: There we go. No, but I follow. I totally follow. It reminds me of the old, it's kind of a poem, I guess, but it's the "For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For one of a horse, the rider was lost. For one of a rider, the message was lost. For one of a message, the battle was lost. For one of a battle, the war was lost and all for the one of a horseshoe nail." To me, that's how these things unfold. It's just one piece is missing and then the whole thing snowballs. And so that was great catastrophizing. But I want us to take it slightly more positive.

Tell us how things like federal regulation and oversight make a concrete difference in public safety and health.

Dr. Christopher: Yeah, I mean, so let's just think about a recent decision to require lead pipes be changed out throughout the country, right? So, no more lead pipes. We have to take them out. We have to put in non-lead pipes. We know that lead is not good for you. You don't want to consume lead. So, this rule, this regulation has been put in place. Let's take all these lead pipes out and replace them with things that aren't going to poison us. So, right there, regulation is creating greater health outcomes. And this also to go back to the kind of the spiral effect, has downstream effects of lower costs for medical care because you're not consuming lead. And this costs the government less money because now they don't have to pay for health care that comes from the consumption of lead, right? This is all really good. And so I think that you have these science-based policies and regulations in place and they do tend to protect the public overall, right?

When you get rid of these, again, who is going to get hurt? It's going to be those low-income communities, those black and brown communities. As a middle-class person, I can buy bottled water.Maybe it's expensive. Maybe it's something I don't want to do. I can filter my water, all right? Although getting lead out of water through a filter is really not easy. But either way, I can buy bottled water. I don't get hit as hard by that. Also, I live in a wealthier neighborhood where it's possible that lead pipes were changed out a lot earlier, right? So, it's, there is this effect on these most vulnerable people in society again.

Jess: You mentioned you mentioned R.F.K. Junior, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And we have heard in the news that he has stated that he wants to remove fluoride from public water systems. He wants to remove vaccines from the marketplace. And we also know that there are plans to roll back protections of federal lands and to undermine climate change and environmental protection goals. How easy will it be for the Trump administration 2.0 to make sweeping anti-science changes to public policy?

Dr. Christopher: That's a really tough question because it is going to depend a lot on what policy change they're looking to make, right? So, if they want to change EPA fuel efficiency standards, that's not hard at all. That's executive order, right? Executive actions can do that. If they want to abolish the Department of Education, like, they say they want to, which had a far-reaching effect on science, that's harder to do. That has to go through Congress. It has to be passed through the House and through the Senate and then signed by the President. It seems like it might be harder for them to do, even if they do control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Just because it is going to be pretty razor-thin in the House. And I don't think you're going to easily find a majority in the House who think the Department of Education needs to be abolished.

But then you see other things, right? Some of the checks on policy changes in the Senate, for example, the filibuster. And it gets abused pretty badly. And in the last, in this current Congress, rather, there's been a lot of pressure on Democrats to get rid of it. They've resisted. I suspect if I had to guess, I don't think the filibuster is going to survive two more years with the incoming Senate. And that's another check that probably disappears and makes it easier for Trump to achieve what he wants to achieve. One of the problems that we've had over the last four years is getting anything through the House and the Senate has been very difficult. So, a lot of the decisions that Biden has made have been through executive actions. And executive action can easily be changed by the next presidency. So, I think that there are going to be ample opportunities for Trump to change things, certainly through executive action, but maybe even through Congress.

Jess: UCS is well-positioned to respond to the results of the election. I mean, we've been around for a really long time and we've got a great team of people and we've been preparing for this worst-case scenario, essentially, for science. So, we really are ready to defend and promote good scientific solutions. So, can you tell me a little bit about what we have been doing as an organization, what we are doing to use science to save lives going into the next administration?

Dr. Christopher: We are focused on democratic and electoral reform. And this is a long-term strategy to ensure that science is being taken into account. And that all people are being represented. So, one thing we want to do is increase fair representation through electoral reform. So, that we have more choices at the ballot box, that more groups can be represented properly and that we end up getting a plethora, a myriad of opinions and attitudes and policy positions in legislatures. And this also helps protect against bastardization of science, attacks on science, etc., because it doesn't allow one party to take total control and do whatever they want, right? It's what we call consensus democracy or consensual democracy where these different political parties and different politicians need to come together and cooperate and work together rather than just conflictual where they say, "I won, we're in charge, and we're going to do what we want."

So, this also protects science, right? Because it allows for more points of input, more actors within a legislature who can listen to different aspects of science, whether it be traditional science or community science or whatever it may be. So, yeah, these are the things that we're doing. We're focusing on short-term, 100 days, how are we going to make sure that these attacks on science are not being publicized too widely or at least being pushed back against? And then what are we doing in the long term to ensure the government works better and pays attention to all attitudes, all opinions, all people, and all opinions on science?

Jess: That's incredibly valuable. And so we're nearing the end. And my last question for guests here on "This Is Science" has two parts. And the first part sounds a little dire, and it is a little broad, considering when we are speaking post-election. But here we go. And Christopher, we are the Union of Concerned Scientists. Why are you concerned?

Dr. Christopher: So, many reasons. As I said, I catastrophize. My biggest concern, I guess there are two of them. As a political scientist, I tend to lean towards kind of these social processes as being big concerns. One of my concerns is attacks on elections. And we look around at other countries. So, Hungary in Europe or Venezuela, the South American Country of Venezuela, let's go back to Hungary for a second. Their leader, Viktor Orbán, seized power, not seized, he won an election about a decade ago. And he has been able to solidify power such that elections really are rigged at this point. They actually are rigged in Hungary and we know this, right? It's exceptional amounts of gerrymandering, right? And what he's been able to do is solidify his power in Hungary simply by affecting elections. It makes it almost impossible to vote him out or at least take a pretty massive movement to get rid of him.

So, this is my first concern is that over the next two years, we're going to see some pretty big attacks on elections. And that I'm not entirely sure that elections moving forward are going to be completely free. That's one of my biggest concerns. And as a corollary to that or an outgrowth of that, I should say, we know that when people don't feel represented, when they don't feel like they have any recourse to change policy through democratic means, they get violent, right? This leads to political violence, which none of us want, right? Political violence is antithetical to democracy. We don't want political violence. But my fear is if elections are affected in the way that they could be, we are going to see substantially more violence, political violence in the United States. That's my biggest concern.

Jess: Okay. And we don't want to end with people thinking all is lost. So, the second part of this question is, what are you doing about those concerns?

Dr. Christopher: That's great. I'm going to go back to what I was saying before. What I am doing, part of the reason why I came to UCS in the first place is as an operating academic or a political scientist, I was doing all this research and it wasn't getting out into the community that needed to see it, all right? It was in this kind of loop where the people I cited, read my work and cited me. And then I read their work and cited them and we just kept going in this circle. But there's a lot that academics, political scientists in general, have learned about governance, right? We have the answers to how to make things work better, right? And this is one of the reasons why I came to UCS and CSD specifically is, we have an opportunity to use this knowledge we have, this science on elections and on governance and on politics to create a more representative, racially diverse, multi-party democracy.

And this doesn't fix all of our problems. It's not a silver bullet. It's not a panacea. But it fixes a lot of them. And so one of the things that I'm involved with here is working on this democratic reform, moving forward, trying to get the United States to a place where it is no longer a sclerotic, lumbering 18th-century democracy. And it is a functioning, representative, multiracial 21st century democracy. And I think there's opportunities for this. And I think the American public is generally in favor of this. They know the problems. They want the solutions. And I think that's something we can give them. And we can fix a lot of the problems.

Ok everyone, you heard him. If we want to enjoy the best version of a modern democracy, that means science can’t sit on the sidelines. No one is going to put us in the game…we have to do it ourselves. Visit our website. ucsusa.org for ways to get involved.

Thanks to Christopher Williams, and to Omari Spears and Abby Figueroa for production help.

Let’s go, Science Patriots!